Blood Orange cocktail – Tagged, TWICE …Aww, Bloody Heaven!

Our Southern Californian climate doesn’t provide us with fall explosions of color, white Christmases, or the magical moments of crocus poking their way through the last of winter’s snow, however we do have our own special experiences of nature. One of the most delicious delights of our winters is the ripening of the citrus. Our tangerines started becoming ripe nearly a month ago, but the longer we leave them still attached to their momma, the sweeter they’ll become.

The next in line for harvest, and that which will provide tonight’s cocktail, is the blood orange. Of all our citrus, the blood orange tree is by far the most flora when fruiting. As the sun warms the fruit and the tree, the sweet aroma fills the surrounding air. It almost makes you want to be reincarnated as a hummingbird so your life can always be filled with such a sweet fragrance. Although personally, the hyperactivity of a hummer just isn’t in my nature.

Now that ourblood oranges are ripe , we are reminded of a cocktail we created last year. It is a blood orange version of the classic Sidecar, which we have dubbed our Midnight Ride. To the best of our knowledge this blood orange ocktail name hasn’t been claimed, and it seemed appropriately sexy while still giving heritage to the Sidecar. Also, quite apropos, we created the cocktail around the midnight hour, as well as wrote this post well beyond midnight. We tend to be a little crazy like that, but at least we are crazy together.

Midnight Ride Cocktail Recipe

Yield:1 Cocktail

Total Time:5 Minutes

Inspired by the Sidecar and our blood orange tree, this is a sexy little cocktail. The blood oranges give it that tangy sweetness which is so beautifully composed within those little bombs, as well as the gorgeous red color. We created this cocktail so you still get the blood orange flavor, yet balances nicely with the alcohol. Hope you can get some good blood oranges and are able to enjoy this sexy little tease.

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Recipe Note for Salt: All recipes containing salt are based on kosher or sea salt amounts, not table salt. If using table salt, reduce the amount used to taste.

Answering Our TWO Tags…after a couple of Midnight Ride Cocktails

We were told that we are interesting by Dhanggit’s Kitchen and With Love From Argentina, two very fabulous international food blogs that we hold in very high esteem. Hmmm, lucky they don’t know the rest of our story! So it’s was quite an honor to be TAGGED by both of them. Being tagged twice worked out perfectly because having both of us answer each question fulfills both tag requirements. To do them proud, we wanted to be able to answer their “Share 5 Facts About Yourself” with the most informative and interesting facts possible through some photographs.

But, BEING UNDER THE INFLUENCE definitely alters the brains’ (and there’s two of ’em here) capacity to function and think logically. We should have stopped at one super duper tasty Midnight Ride, but we had to finish off the blood oranges we picked off the tree, so there were a few waiting to drunk. DRUNK? Did someone way drunk? No waaay! (Whoa, I think we are starting to slur our text?!?) We might have wobbled about in the kitchen a bit, but we still managed to think strait enough to come up with our 5 facts and walked the line straight enough to gather our samples to photograph. Just don’t make us pass a breathalyser test. 😛

To know us is takes time, because we often confuse people with our interests and daily habits. Some think they know us well, and then they come over for a night long feast and their whole perspective of us gets flip flopped. Maybe we scare the shit out of everyone with our massive amounts of food we feed them or maybe it’s our crazy dogs. What ever the case, they never look at us in the same way again.

So after a long day at work (yes, we worked this WHOLE holiday 3-day weekend!!) here are 5 facts we agreed to share after a fun midnight hour of good music and refreshing blood orange & liquor crafted beverages:

5 Facts about White On Rice Couple…She’s the white, He’s the rice.

1. During this freezing Southern California winter (brrrrr!), we rely heavily on our favorite house slippers:

He wears Japanese wooden slippers, She wears warm fleece booties.

2. Hobbies: Things we enjoy doing and want to become better at:

His Aikido martial arts, Her mountain dulcimer music.

3. Our vices that need to be controlled before we die of a heart attack:

His weakness for sugar, Her weakness for salt.

4. We always eat our scrambled eggs with our favorite eating utinsel:

He picks with chopsticks, She pokes with a fork.

5. We’re not married, been together for 12 years, refer to each other as one another’s “power of attorney” (because if something happens to one of us, the other one wants FULL RIGHTS to the body!), and still seem to really enjoy / piss off / annoy / support each other after all these years. In the end, it’s all about love, laughter, and the pursuit of good food, good wine, tolerant friends and tasty cocktails. To top off this cute-see, chee-sy fact, we even have matching “decade” bands. Awwwwww!!!!!!

Now it PAYBACK TIME!!! Since we’ve been tagged twice with the same questions and we each gave our set of answers to satisfy both tags, that means we get tag 5 from Dhanngit’s Kitchen and 5 from From Argentina With love. Thats 10 victims all in one shot! That’s a hard one because there’s so many interesting food blogging fools out there that we need investigate. So after much collaboration, here are the first 10:

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.

2. Share 5 facts about yourself

3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).

4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their Blogs.

1. Breakaway Cook – Eric’s fabulous style of cooking simply, but full of robust flavors is mouthwatering in his great cookbooks.

2. Cinnamonda-Far away in Finland, Tiina is cooking up a delicious storm.

7. NikkoPolani – If you love good food, gardening and cats, this is the purrrrfect blog for you!

8. Viet World Kitchen – Andrea’s super informative site and cookbook can answer all your curiosities for anything and everything you need to know about Viet cuisine and culture. She’ll even teach you how to speak the food terms!

Your blog rocks! Love the photos and stories. I’m so glad that you dropped by my blog because now I’ve discovered yours. We have a bit of “white on rice couple” syndrome going on in our home too. 😉 Love the decade bands (awww!).

Damn you!! You’re so lucky to have fruit-bearing trees on your property. I love my city-living, but I do dream of the day I have enough land to have some trees and can grow lots of veggies. Our 10 ft by 15 ft. backyard in Brooklyn allows us to grow some stuff, but I’m definitely jealous of what you guys can grow. Blood oranges are in the market now (and cheap!), so I’m thinking of making this delicious-looking side-car recreation this weekend! Thanks for the inspiration. – Amy @ http://www.neverfull.wordpress.com

Should I admit this? — I didn’t know what a meme was before today. I’m such a nerd. Thanks for the tag (is that how you say it?). I’m just really jazzed to find other who love our food/culture/history as much as I do. You guys rock the boat!

Tagged thrice, bloody hells bells 😀 There are a lot of these going around these days. Part of the reason we participate is to learn a few quirky facts about our fellow bloggers and the other reason is to get the word out there about our favourite blogs. You have been tagged yet again for that reason 😀

hey there to both of you, im speechless. this is just more than answering a meme for me its like a poetry of yourselves in photos. it seems to me the contrasts in your likeness and personality binds you stronger together glad to know you guys even more!!

Rosie- Just keep whiffing and eventually you’ll be able to work your way up to taking a sip!

Louise- Too bad persimmons and pummelos don’t work or you. That means you’ll just have to grow more blood orange trees one day!

Cork & Feast- I’ve just started teaching myself how to play the dulcimer. I love folk music and the soothing sounds that the dulcimer brings. Tell your kids that hip music can be played on a dulcimer too!

Rebecca- Thanks for the tag, it was fun. Especially when we treated ourselves to a cocktail while doing it!

Made Healthier- Desserts are great and even a hard core salt fan needs a change of pace!

I actually had to read this over three times: the first time was merely a debriefing; the second was to soak up the alcohol, I mean drink recipe; and the third was to re-read your 5 facts. The dulcimer? You play the dulcimer? I think that’s wonderful – I have a whole cd of dulcimer music I throw on sometimes when I’m in the kitchen baking and trying to get into the “zone.” My kids think it makes me, “Not hip, Mom!” to that I say, “Whatever!”

Anyway, you really did this post justice and I agree with Lydia – the slippers are fantastic!

All but one actually cooks. Sous chef #1 is a great baker at 16. Creme brulee, homemade coconut cake. She should become a chef but is going to major in poly sci! Sous chef #2 doesn’t care about cooking just eating. Sous chef #3 (11 year old boy) does all the grilling in our house, I taught him. It stands to reason that’s why he wants to be a firefighter. Sous chef #4 just learned how to chop onions and shallots and she’s about to turn 10. Just like when you were a kid, I have lots of kids in and out also. They are all called “Jack” . I just gave you 5 facts about me, actually my kids but there are 5 more facts on my blog. Is it bad I want one of your cocktails at 10:30 in the morning?

Geesh- you are so killing me with that garden of yours. If I show up on your front doorstep will you adopt me and take me in? Pretty please?? I make a mean Blood Orange margarita! 😉
Can I just state the obvious and say that I love coming here to look at your gorgeous photos. I could really decorate my house with these. And I was laughing when I saw “shit” too~ I figured you guys are way too refined for my sort of trucker language. HA!

Charcuterista- We love making people smile on our blog, because at work we always seem to make people frown!

Nikki- My mom is the same way too, and maybe that’s where we get it from. This woman is craaaaazy! I’ll be writing about her soon.

WC- You fearless eater you! You’re on our invite list for the next event!

Cakelaw – Yes! Two points for me and one for him!

Simply – Ok, you’re riding the fence here! One point for me and one more for him.

Evil- Oops! Sorry about that! I grew in a household of 6 kids ( along with many friends), so there were always tons of kids in the house. My parents stopped counting after 3. Maybe I’m doing the same. You’re kids are cuuute, and wouldn’t mind trading for one of your kids for a day. Do they pull weeds and dice shallots?

LisaRene – Words to live by: “NEVER SEND AN EMAIL WHILE DRUNK”! Thanks!

Pixie- Thanks for the link and we look forward to reading it!

Kitt- .~.~getting to like you, getting to hope you like me.~.~
I love singing along, thanks for letting me finish!

Srivalli – Welcome ! Our tree is a great investment because for the $20 we spent six years ago, we’ve gained so much for fruit in return.

Anya – Welcome to buddy! We like hanging out at your place too.

Happy Cook – Yeah, there are few dull moments between us. We’re always antagonizing one another-we do this to keep ourselves young!

FlaN – Have you made any cocktails using plantains yet? Might be quite tasty!

Tempered- You’re welcome any time, especially if you can make a bloody orange margarita. You’d definitely have to spend the night though, because all the cocktails won’t allow you drive back!

i just loved this post, guys!! how cute. you give a single gal like myself hope in this world in trying to find love! especially after a convo with a good guy friend that says marriage is for the birds (he’s divorced).

blood oranges–the best i’ve had were in Italy. they were so darn good!
your’s look just as amazing!

Hey thanks for tagging me! Now I have to sound interesting… Were you secretly wanting one of my kids? ’cause I have 4, I wish I had three but sadly that’s not the case. I’ll trade you some fruit and spices for one! They all like to eat, fairly well trained, smart, one likes politics a little too much, well read. You sure you don’t want one?

Awww, you two should win an award for the “cutest couple blog”, truly!

I had my very first Sidecar this past Saturday night. Brandy / Cognac (need to learn the difference) is a spirit I have just begun to explore. So far I’m liking it! Typically I have only purchased brandy to marinate dried fruit in! I’ll give your Sidecar a spin this weekend as the one I had on Saturday night was at a bar so of course it was partially comprised of a high fructose corn syrup sweet/sour yuckiness. I do like my cocktail strong and pure!

You know how to twist a girl’s arm, don’t you! Okay. I have some ideas and will be working on the tags. Meanwhile, I enjoyed reading and seeing both of your answers. I like the bit about scaring people with the amount of food you feed them Sounds like my mom!